Beyond the First Five Pages

An agent once told me that she reads the first sentence of a manuscript. If she likes it, she reads the second, then the third. If she finishes the manuscript, she signs it up.

I suspect most readers are willing to give you a little more leeway than that, but there’s a reason so many workshops, online discussions, articles, and writing books focus on your hook – your first five pages, your opening page, even your first paragraph. Most readers buy books because they know what they’ll be getting. Writers with an established reputation can take their time getting into their stories because they know their readers will stick with them until the story’s underway. But if you’re just starting out, readers are less likely to trust you for a chapter or two. Those opening paragraphs may be the only chance you get to suck them into your fictional world.

But obsessing over your opening paragraphs carries its own risks. You may try to pack so much tension, so much hook into your opening that you wind up writing page one in a voice that doesn’t match page two. Many years ago, I worked with a client who was trying so hard to impress her readers with her hook that her first few pages were unreadably self-conscious. She didn’t settle down to clear prose until about page 10.

Or you could wind up with a brilliant, precisely-crafted, exciting hook that’s not actually part of your story. Years ago, I edited a novel about a Viet Nam nurse that opened with the high drama of a field hospital, then followed her career through the war. Thing is, the main story was less about the nurse’s battlefield experience as about how it affected her when she returned home. Opening in Nam delayed the start of the story for a hundred pages or so, until the writer managed to get the nurse back to the States. In her next draft, the nurse had a flashback-induced panic attack while she was giving birth and wound up huddled under her hospital bed, and things went on from there. It was not quite as exciting as the battlefield, but it pulled readers straight into the story.

The importance of grab-your-readers-by-the-throat tension may be a little overrated, as well. The opening paragraphs are important, sure, but they’re also easy to examine. You can fit a decent analysis of two paragraphs into a 500-word blog entry, or explain what works and what doesn’t in a ten-minute panel discussion at a writing workshop. Judging the opening paragraphs against the context of the entire story takes a lot more time and effort. So the amount of attention that gets paid to your hook in writerly circles may give you a false sense of its value.

A lot of wildly successful books have hooks that most of these reviews would reject out of hand. For instance, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, the first book of the series of the same name, literally opens with the weather. “My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue.” (Bear in mind that, though Meyer’s books have their problems, they are immensely popular. She must be doing something right.) It’s not as if Meyer had a track record to rely on – she had not even written a short story before writing Twilight. It looks like the opener is a classic beginner’s mistake.

Yet the story that follows was strong enough to find a large and grateful readership. And that story does begin with the weather. Bella is moving from sunny Phoenix to perpetually-gray Washington State, where the vampires she meets have chosen to live specifically for the constant cloud cover. (They tend to sparkle in direct sunlight). Readers don’t realize it at the time, but that amateurish-looking comment about the weather drops them into the middle of the true story from the first paragraph.

Another immensely successful first novel, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, opens with a first chapter that is entirely flashback. Even worse, it’s written from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. It opens by introducing the pathologically normal Dursley family, Mr. Dursley’s job with Grunnings Drills, and the family home on relentlessly suburban Privet drive. Things do get a little strange after that, what with a lot of owls flying around and a stray cat who seems to read road signs. But all the action that triggers the events of the first chapter happens in the background.

But Rowling’s opening drops readers into the middle of the strange and whimsical world in which the stories take place, right from the opening line: “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” The slight sarcasm of the “. . . thank you very much” tells you that the Dursley’s normality is not going to be the last word, even before Hagrid shows up on the flying motorcycle. And the fact that the motivating action takes place in the background creates the sense of Rowling’s magical world hidden behind the façade of normality the Dursleys represent. The opening violates a lot of the rules of writing a good hook, but it is exactly the right place to start the actual story.

If you open your story with a sharp, snappy hook, you stand a good chance of getting your readers to keep reading. But if you follow that hook with a story that has nothing to do with it, they may not finish. And even if they do, they’ll be less likely to buy your next one. Ultimately, what will build your readership is not your opening paragraphs, but the stories that follow them.

What’s your favorite example of a hook that doesn’t take you anywhere? What went wrong? Or what are your favorite books that lead you into the story gently and gradually?

Wish you could buy this author a cup of joe?

Dave King is the co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, a best-seller among writing books. An independent editor since 1987, he is also a former contributing editor at Writer's Digest. Many of his magazine pieces on the art of writing have been anthologized in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing and in The Writer's Digest Writing Clinic. You can check out several of his articles and get other writing tips on his website.

Comments

Openings versus the rest. Hooks versus heart. Where stories truly begin and what they are really about. Cripe, Dave, what are you thinking? You have opened Pandora’s Box of Craft Conundrums.

Where to begin? My comment, I mean. Maybe with beginnings. I love your examples of manuscripts that wander in search of the true opening. Nowadays I suggest a simple question: What is the moment when a protagonist realizes that things are changing, and that they can never change back? They may not provide an opening line but it does indicate where the true story begins.

The plot, you see, is one thing. It can provide a hook. But a plot gimmick is not what hooks our hearts. We are drawn in emotionally by a character who is in flux. We feel that in the urgency with which they are narrating to us, which is why the Twilight opening works. A world can be in flux too, explaining how omniscient narrator openings as in the first Potter novel are able to capture us.

I agree that catchy openings can be a false promise. In manuscripts, I often begin to notice the sag of the middle on page three. I think the reason is similar. Writers are trying to stretch a plot to fill three hundred pages, while the true and urgent story is something that infuses and electrifies everything in a protagonist’s experience.

You know Ray’s flogging the openings posts here on WU? Maybe we should flog third pages. We could learn a lot from that too, I suspect.

Nice insight on looking to the moment when the protagonists realizes that things are changing. I can think of some exceptions, where readers keep reading because they know things are changing but the protagonist is still in blissful ignorance. But in general, it’s a good place to look for the true opening of the story.

And you are so right that the story hinges more on character than event.

And flogging third pages? Maybe we should suggest that to the Powers that Be.

“It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the Chaplain he fell madly in love with him.” -Catch-22

The opening then jumps into describing Yossarian’s malingering as if the first two sentences had no meaning to the story that’s about to be told, but they do. They set the tone of the humor. That’s why I like the hook even though it doesn’t go anywhere.

Now that I think of it, there’s a whole class of books where the tone is a large part of the book’s appeal. I’d mentioned the Harry Potters, you’re right about Catch-22. And then there’s the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opening:

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

“Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

To answer the second part of your prompt, I’ve long noticed how many of my favorites lead the reader in gradually, or in a decidedly non-hookish way.

If you look beyond the prologue (another supposed literary no-no), Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin, opens: ‘The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.’ Yep, weather. And it takes time to see how much weather plays into the story, or learn that the Stark family motto is, “Winter Is Coming.” The second line offers more intrigue: ‘They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement.’

Or how about the opening lines of The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley (again, looking beyond a prologue): ‘Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, Lady of Duke Gorlois, looked over out over the sea from the headland. As she stared into the fogs and mists, she wondered how she would ever know when the night and day were of equal length, so that she could keep the Feast of the New Year.’ I guess the fact that Tintagel is haunted is intriguing, but again, weather and season of the year are featured. Setting the prologue aside, it takes over a hundred pages before we even meet Morgaine, the primary protagonist.

Then there’s the opening paragraph of The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett (again, after a prologue): ‘In a broad valley, at the foot of a sloping hillside, beside a clear bubbling stream, Tom was building a house.’ No weather, but still, several paragraphs go by, describing the building of the house, and who’s there working on it, their ages, how it would be “the most luxurious home for miles around,” etcetera. Not too many clues about the story until page three: ‘Tom had been offered the post of builder to the Exeter castellan, repairing and improving the city’s fortifications. It would have been a lifetime job, barring accidents. But Tom turned it down, for he wanted to build another cathedral.’

I would say all of these and several other favorites of mine open gently, and/or slowly. And yet my pre-writer self happily read on. I think even writer me would. Fun and interesting stuff. Thanks, Dave.

Excellent examples, Vaughn, particularly the Game of Thrones use of the weather to foreshadow the coming of winter.

Though I would point out that all three of the novels you mention were later works by already successful writers. Which, I think, goes to show that readers who already trust you are willing to let you ease into your story gradually.

A Story Like the Wind by Laurens van der Post begins thus: “Something happened to François when he was barely thirteen, without which the story that follows would not have been possible. He was fast asleep in his own room at the far western end of the farmhouse at the time, when a tense, high-pitched whimper from Hintza sounding right in his ear woke him. Hintza was François’s own special dog…” and off we go into a long complex narrative that is always compelling, drawn there by these initial hints of mystery, exotica, a boy becoming a man, and a wonderfully talented dog.

An agent’s minion suggested I start my fantasy not where I did, but where the dead uncle on the dead horse shows up.

I thought I needed the other stuff to ground the reader in the world, but she was right. It was the right place to start it.

“They say bad news rides a fast horse. No one said anything about it riding a dead one, and the black destrier my uncle now rode toward me had died two years ago.”

Mr. Maass has the right of it as the minion did. Wow, surprise there, huh? Start it where everything is changing for the MC.

I love the opening to The Sorcerer’s Stone because it sets the tone so well. Everything is normal, thank you very much. And you just know it’s fixing to get very un-normal.

Of course, I also loved the prologue to Game of Thrones and I don’t usually care for them. I bought the book because of the prologue.

Gone With the Wind starts with a character description everyone gnashes their teeth about normally.

I tend to agree that many people workshop their first pages to death and they don’t always match the remainder of the story. It’s a conundrum because there is so much riding on those first five-fifty pages. The thing is, all the pages need to be cut from the same bolt of cloth.

I agree. It’s not only the moment when things change, the image of the man riding the horse that died opens up all sorts of intriguing questions. Even the word “destrier” helps establish historic era and a bit about the character of the narrator.

“An agent once told me that she reads the first sentence of a manuscript. If she likes it, she reads the second, then the third. If she finishes the manuscript, she signs it up.”

I love this.

First pages seem to be such a popular theme at workshops. There are so many opinions on the subject, but I’ve always thought from those workshops that as a reader I’m lured into voice, setting, emotions…opening hooks can often feel like gimmicks if they’re not carried through like a symphony into the rest of the narrative.

I don’t like reading books that make me feel like I’m standing in a used car lot (aka opening lines). I want a nice car that will take me places, like a good book, emotionally and all.

Still and all, Dave, I think your story about the agent stopping or reading on depending on the first sentence, and then the second, and then on highlights the importance of solid writing and storytelling on the first page, especially for those wanting to break in.

What the anecdote about the agent leaves unclear is whether or not it simply refers to liking well-crafted English sentences. I’ll wager that’s not all she needs to see to like a series of sentences. I’ll bet that if they don’t draw her into story that she runs out of liking pretty quickly. Perhaps even as soon as the bottom of the first page.

As for flogging third pages, that’s not a bad idea, Don. I often find a much stronger opening on the second or third page of the chapters and prologues I critique on Flogging the Quill. And, for that matter, on more than one bestseller examined here on WU in the Flog a Pro series. That’s the kind of thing editors can help writers with. More often than not, I see narratives that start too soon in the story arc to serve as tension-inducing openings. I’m sure you’ve hear the phrase “clearing the throat” applied to more than one lackadaisical opening.

I’ve often found that hooks fail because it’s clear that the writer is feeling his or her way into the story. I’ve often suggested to clients that they write their first draft. Then, when they really understand what the story is, scrap their first chapters and rewrite them from scratch.

And we seem to be forming a consensus that flogging a third page might not be a bad idea.

Great piece and love all the banter! After reading this, I opened up Serpent and read it again with satisfaction. I am even more pleased with my opening couple of sentences! whew! It doesn’t hit you over the head, it’s tantalizing…

I think the combination of slightly humorous tone with tension forced me to keep reading after this opening by Deanna Raybourn in “Silent in the Grave”.

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

I stared at him, not quite taking in the fact that he had just collapsed at my feet. He lay, curled like a question mark, his evening suit ink-black against the white marble of the floor. He was writhing, his fingers knotted.

I leaned as close to him as my corset would permit.

“Edward, we have guests. Do get up. If this is some sort of silly prank–”

“He is not jesting, my lady. He is convulsing.”

An impatient figure in black pushed past me to kneel at Edward’s side. He busied himself for a few brisk moments, palpating and pulse-taking, while I bobbed a bit, trying to see over his shoulder. Behind me the guests were murmuring, buzzing, pushing closer to get a look of their own. There was a little thrill of excitement in the air. After all, it was not every evening that a baronet collapsed senseless in his own music room.

As a newbie, the confusing part of beginnings is that we are told that we need to show the normal story world before the change. How can we open with a disturbance if the normality isn’t shown first? This is the area where I am having the most difficulty at the moment, so this post is very apropos to me. Thanks for your help.

You’re right, Rebecca, that’s a tricky point. Ideally, your opening — like so many other elements of writing — has to do several things at once. And it is possible to simultaneously establish the status quo while you show it being changed.

And, realistically, you may have a little time to do it. Don suggested starting the story with the point where your protagonist realizes everything is going to change, and that’s a good rule of thumb. But that doesn’t mean you have to pack the change into your first sentence. The entire scene could be about the moment of change, which would give you the chance to establish what’s normal — and, by the way, let your readers know and like your protagonist — before bringing in the change.

Thanks, Dave. I’m loving this discussion, but fear I have nothing meaningful to add to it. I’m suffering over my own first page right now on the new WIP, and actually added the following after reading so much from so many here at WU, especially Don. I have no idea if it’s the right way to start, but I’m plowing ahead in the hope that, by manuscript’s end, I’ll know:

A passable poet once remarked that I lay sprawled upon the anvil of the world. A deft turn of phrase, but not quite true. The anvil is vast, and I do not merely lie recumbent like a victim. I wander. As do you, my friend. That’s not to say we’re mere scattering targets for the hammer-blows of consequence, howling down from the Hand of Wrath. We are fellow pilgrims in a solemn and sacred mystery, rooted in grief and gravity, yes, but not without consolations: the warmth of a fire in the home of a friendly stranger. Chasing hounds through high grass. A lusty song, the touch of benevolent grace or vagabond luck, the sight of each other across a room at twilight. And love. That is my tale, here and elsewhere, whether traipsing the great cathedrals of piety, a veiled lady on my arm, or slogging through some vain battle’s heartless muck, caught with my brothers dodging crossfire in the moon’s witchy, one-eyed glare. The lesson is simple either way: Live. Cursed like me or blessed by chance, condemned or forgiven, welcomed in the doorway by loving laughter or shunned in bitter silence, live till the last sighing shudder of the flame. Till our trembling shadows vanish from the world. Let me tell you a story.

Sadly, I have no idea if it’s the right way to start, either. Could you tell us a little more about where it goes from here? About the character of the narrator, what problems he or she faces, that sort of thing?

Yeah, you see the problem precisely, which is why this darling will most likely get murdered.

It’s too coy in withholding the information the reader needs and instead shovels on hints. I’m trying to suggest the sweep of the (immortal but not invulnerable) narrator’s perspective and the gist of what his problem is, i.e., in each incarnation, struggling to retain his faith in life, his compassion for humanity.

He’s Oisin, the son of Finn McCool, the leader of the ancient fianna, the hunters/soldiers who form the Fenian Cycle in Celtic lore. Because he missed his father and friends, Oisin left Tir Na Nog, the Land of Youth, where he was wedded to Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of Mannanán, the lord of the sea and the underworld. Because of that insult, Oisin has now been cursed to live and die over and over until he gains what he could have had if he’d stayed put: the wisdom of all things.

I’m struggling with when to reveal what, because the story in the novel itself starts somewhat modestly, with him simply trying to help a friend in dire need. Bit by bit I provide glimpses into who he might be, and how different he is from normal mortals — with the suggestion he might simply be mad — but I was trying (straining) for that “Once Upon a Time” opening Don discussed not long ago.

Another great post. Regarding Rebecca’s dilemma: sometimes a beginning can suggest the story’s normal world by contrasting it with what’s about to come. For example, “Of all the Jones’s family fights, this was the worst ever” tells the reader that the Joneses were not one big happy family to start with, and that things are getting even uglier. It also hooks the reader into the story.

For me as a reader, the strongest hook is the author’s voice, whatever the opening happens to be about.

One of my favorite novel openings of all time is the first chapter of East of Eden . . . and it’s a whole chapter of setting description, followed by a discussion of place names. No “action” at all. But we get Steinbeck’s voice, and all his rich commentary on what might otherwise seem insignificant details, and it’s brilliant. For Steinbeck, the setting is almost a character, so it fits the story.

Note, though, that these words — and the opening of East of Eden — both convey the narrator’s voice, not the character’s. It’s the narrator’s deep love for and roots in the Salinas valley that are entrancing about the opening. We learn not just facts about the valley, but something about the person who cherishes these facts.

And you’re right, getting to know a character this interesting is often enough to draw readers into a book.

Bear in mind, though, that when East of Eden came out (1952), Steinbeck was already considered a literary lion. A completely unknown writer may have had a harder time getting readers to trust them through this first chapter.

I’m only working on my second novel now (not counting the 872 false starts that I wrote before finally finishing something!), so I’m no expert. However, in my most-humble opinion, I think it is best to worry about your hook after the rest of the story has been written.

I agonized far too much over the first few pages of my first novel. I changed “where the story begins” so many times, I lost count. Eventually, the beginning of the story revealed itself, but not until I had gotten the rest of the story out of my head and onto the page.

My current WIP starts like this: “First line, need a good hook – what is happening right now? Damaris listened in on the conversation as she made the rounds of the pre-wedding festivities. She had been put in charge of monitoring the champagne glasses and cricking a finger at the nearest help-child whenever a guest became dangerously close to emptying his or her glass. As sister to the bride, she also mingled with the guests, many of whom commented on Damaris’ new status as eldest unmarried daughter of a Head Council member.”

It’s all sorts of telling rather than showing. I’m sure no one wants to read the book based on what I have shared above. But, it’s a first draft, so that’s okay. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first draft, and my thoughts on what should happen in that first chapter continue to evolve. I will eventually return to the first chapter and will most likely write an entirely new first chapter that offers the promise that is fulfilled in the remainder of the novel. For now, I’m not worried. I have learned that if I wait until I have figured out the first chapter to continue writing, I will never finish the book.

It’s not just that it’s hard to find your hook before you’ve written the rest of the story. It’s hard to truly know who your characters are until you’ve gotten to know them and watched their lives play out. So, yes, if your hook doesn’t come to you immediately (some writers start their novels because they’re inspired by an opening scene), let it go and write the rest of the novel first. Then you might be able to find where the story begins.

As a reader, I’m sick of how much attention is given to first lines. I understand about hook, etc., and as a writer, of course, I give that attention. But I’ve thrown books across the room because of bad endings. I’ve *never* done that because of bad beginnings.

Good point about tossing books across the room. And one of the things that inspired me to write this piece is that hooks can get a disproportionate amount of attention.

But I think the hook is valuable when a reader picks up a book by an unknown author in a bookstore — or uses the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon. That is the one spot where your hook can garner you new readers.

One quick aside. One of my favorite opening lines comes from 2500 years ago — from the History of Herodotus. “Those Persians best schooled in history say the Phoenicians began the quarrel.” Drops you right in the middle of things from the beginning.